


tantalizing.

by discodancing



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Character Study, M/M, Pining, Relationship Study, Unrequited Love, konoha likes akaashi you can tell if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25567771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discodancing/pseuds/discodancing
Summary: keiji akaashi has never quite been able to reach his ace.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	tantalizing.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a doozy, this one! It was a lot of fun to write. It’s a little bit more stylistic than a lot of my writing, but I’m sort of proud of the switch in style!
> 
> Big thank you to @ffiiissshhh who threatened to beat me to death when I gave them a sneak peak at this piece. I’m glad it hurt.

tantalizing.  
tan•ta•li•zing  
tormenting or teasing with the slight promise of something unattainable.

-

keiji akaashi has never quite been able to reach his ace. 

he imagines that it’s how the planets around the sun feel, spinning helplessly around it without the ability to touch— the ability to feel. he was pulled in just like these planets, made to spin until he could no longer think rationally. he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop spinning, because there’s no way he can forget about his bokuto-san.

he’s so always so close he can taste it, but never close enough for it to become true. his ace is too distant, too focused on other things. he’ll bring girls into practice, sometimes, eyes impossibly bright with the need to impress them. if keiji purposefully throws a few bad tosses, he doesn’t feel great about it, but that’s his business and not anybody else’s.

“a little further from the net, akaashi!” his ace would say with a friendly clap on the back, and then keiji would send it even closer to the net than before. bokuto-san never corrects him twice, though. he’s far too nice for that. 

there’s something about his bright personality that keiji finds absolutely infuriating. he seems too good to be true, too radiant to be speaking with mere fools like the people around them. he’s like the sun in this way, too, impossibly bright. maybe that’s why keiji doesn’t like to look directly into his smile. not anymore, at least. never anymore, when he can now see that bokuto-san is not somebody who can be attained. he will grow out of volleyball, probably, and find himself a beautiful girlfriend that is just as radiant as he is.

keiji will be happy for them. he’ll find himself a different boy, someone who can love him and someone who he can love too. it’s never good to fall for someone who does not have the capacity to love him back, he knows this. the thought of finding someone else puts him off, makes him a little bit queasy, but he decides that it’s okay. this crush will not last forever— it will wear off the minute bokuto-san finds himself somebody serious and makes himself completely unavailable.

keiji thinks bokuto-san does not realize that he’s playing mind games. this whole ‘half availability’ thing, and all of the joke flirting. it’s all beginning to twist through keiji’s head, distracting him from everything else. he has to reject these fake advances. no use in false hope, there never is.

“aw, akaaaashi,” the ace would say, eyebrows wiggling suggestively. “come here and give ole bokuto-senpai a kiss!”

walking briskly away is all keiji can do to avoid doing exactly what was asked of him. he doesn’t want to put bokuto-san into an impossible situation. konoha tells him that it might make things worse in the long run.

(konoha knows everything without having to be told. keiji, to his credit, hides things well. konoha is just painfully smart.)

keiji wonders, sometimes, if bokuto-san ever stops what he’s doing to think. he doesn’t think so, but he’s not in the ace’s head as much as he might want to be. he wants to know what makes him tick, what makes him fall for the people he does. maybe that’s selfish, but keiji wants to know why he’s not good enough. 

he’s seen bokuto-san fall in love with countless girls and even a few boys— so why the hell is he not good enough? he’s not tall and handsome like kuroo-san, who bokuto-san was (and probably still is) infatuated with. he’s not fragile and delicate like all of those nameless girls that walk in and out of the ace’s life. 

even while he sits on the bus, next to a sleeping bokuto-san, he can’t help but wonder what it would be like if his feelings were returned. 

his phone dings, and he stares at the message from konoha. ‘you’re thinking too loud, man’ it says, and he lets out a heavy sigh. 

(konoha is going to give him a hug later, he knows. maybe buy him a pork bun, too. he doesn’t know why konoha is so nice to him. he supposes maybe konoha likes someone, too, the way that he likes bokuto-san.)

he reaches for his ace, longing, but his hand stops short. 

he should never touch something that is not his.


End file.
